Humanity's Death: A Zombie Epic (20 page)

5

Large nails were driven into the tree’s thick body.
Okona’s UTG 547 Law Enforcement Tactical Vest hung, beside it a
pair of black FREETOO Men’s Full Finger Tactical Gloves. Perfect
Point throwing knives were strapped to his leg. A Smith and Wesson
.45 rested on his right hip. And, of course, a sharp and deadly
short sword in a black sheath laid waiting to be strapped to his
back.

He laid back and stared at the invisible wind
blowing the tree tops above and listened to the conversation
happening behind him.

“What do you miss more than anything?” It was
Andre speaking in his rough smoker's voice (though he'd given it up
after the Fever, go figure).

His brother Chris responded, “Easy. Krispy Crème
donuts.” Chris's broad shoulders rested against an oak log. His
long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. His hands
connected behind his head and created a cradle for his neck.

“Still a fatty.” Andre said. Andre was Chris's
older brother. He was a short man with a stalk build. His eyes were
sharp and his face was lean; his skin the color of blackened
ash.

“A one of a kind fat ass.” Chris agreed. “But
look at me now. Pure muscle.” He flexed his biceps. They weren’t as
much muscle as they were lean pieces of blackened beef with long
stretch marks and loose skin, like pieces of black flesh jerky.

“That’s what the end of times will do to a man.”
Okona said; still staring into the swell of black night, his eyes
locked onto something deep in the night.

“Always with the philosophical gibberish. Can’t
you spare us one night?” Tasha said. She had sat down beside
Okona.

“Not on your life.” Okona said.

“
Indeed!”
started Tasha said. The moon light lit her demon green eyes as she
spoke, “Okona is born a philosopher. He will die a philosopher.”
Her eyes glowed like a mystic’s magic ball. She wore a tight
BodyArmor green long sleeve shirt. A scar ran down the right side
of her face. In her back pocket, an issue of
The Walking Dead
graphic novel coiled, snug
against her ass. Before the shit hit the fans, Tasha was Tasha
Lonely, a sad girl that sketched dark fantasy characters while in
her final year of high school; though she was pretty enough to make
any high school boy want her.

Tasha focused was on the dark rattling night.
Staring out into the windy darkness, she saw her step father’s
drunken face laughing while watching a 52 inch Samsung. He sat in a
black recliner, shoving Bojangles fried chicken down his throat.
He’d never touched her, but the way he looked at her sometime
really gave her the fucking creeps. The guy was a career military
man working as a recruiter at the local mall. What in god’s name
her mom ever saw in him, will always be beyond her comprehension.
The man was slender everywhere except his beer gut, that protruded
out like a small baby bump. In the darkness, she saw his face
laughing like a eerie ghost lost in timeless madness.

Somewhere in the distance a pack of wild dogs
howled. The trees shivered with a fresh gust. For nearly five
minutes they all sat without saying a word…

Tonya moved closer to Okona and took his hand,
“Probably sees a pack of dead heads. I don’t smell anything.”

“Me either.”

Behind them, “Yep. Krispy Crème. What a great
place.” Chris said.

Chris wasn’t really thinking about Krispy Crème
donuts. The thought of a sweet and warm donut oozing white crème
with chocolate on top did nothing to shake the memories of his
daughters. His beautiful and wonderfully smart and sweet girls.
Seven-year-old twins. They loved Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. Chris
loved his girls like they still breathed.

He didn't know it, but his girls were roaming 17
feasting on guts. Chris didn’t see that though. All he saw, while
the moon glistened like a shiny round donut across his charcoal
black face, was taking them for ice cream at the local Frosty
Freeze. Tara enjoyed a hot fudge Sunday while Daria slurped on a
vanilla shake. Their youthful eyes radiating confidence and
pride.

"The new Star Wars is coming soon, girls."

They enjoyed their desert while tapping messages
to girls like Tammy Snidely, who had already grown breasts and was
considered hot stuff by the boys at Socastee Middle High. They took
the time to stare at their father, giving him a pitied look, one of
the identical twins said, "mom says grown men that watch Star Wars
are losers."

The other twin chimed, "you DO NOT want people
to see you as a loser, dad. I'm just saying..."

Chris had looked away from his girls that day
and let them go back to their digital doodling. The last thing he
wanted was to think about his wife. He would have never told his
daughters, but he hated their mother. The kind of hate that added
fifty pounds of fat, high cholesterol, and a blood pressure reading
that puts a man on Metoprolol.

His wife was a sharp dressed public prosecutor
raised by a father who hated "nigger lovers." Her first act of
rebellion was to fall in love with a gangly thug, but after high
school, and after her daddy gave her the boot, she'd met Chris in
college.

She was gorgeous and blonde, a real delight.
Chris studied business (and comics, of course) while she studied
history and law. They’d met at a college campus kegger. Loud music
had blared and a motley band played drunk on the stand. The house
was an old Victorian era mansion. A real splendor to see.

“Hey there.” She’d said that day.

“The names Chris. How about this party?”

“Life could be worse. Here we are enjoying
ourselves while little black boys and girls run around naked
playing in the fucking sprinklers!” Her face turned red and tears
puddled around her eyes.

“Calm down! Jesus Christ!”

She put her hands on her hips and stared him
dead in the eye. “You're clearly are a poser.”

“A poser? Really? I’m black!”

“Black raised in a white environment. You’re a
token the White Man uses to control the masses! You’re a fake!”

Somehow he'd convinced her to give him her
number. And sometime later, he'd made the mistake of convincing her
to marry him.

Shit days faded back to dead days…

“I’m sure most of the Krispy Crème aficionados
died pretty darn fast.” Andre said. “Fat bastards.”

“I hope they died with a chocolate crème filled
donut in their bellies.”

Chris and Andre had opened and operated the
Comic Maze. It was their dream since childhood. The smell of fresh
clean comics, old comics, and the sight of all the wonderful
extras—Batman figurines, Superman posters and shirts, oh glory, did
those brothers love their comics.

And so did Tasha. The Comic Maze had been her go
to spot.

"Did you guys see the walking dead last night?"
Tasha had asked. It was a overcast day; a perfect day for sitting
around a comic store shooting the shit with other comic lovers. Not
that any of them needed a rainy day to do that; it was as natural
as breathing.

"Poor Lorie" Chris said.

"She'll be missed" Andre said.

"Well see her again. Those flash backs are
notorious." Tasha added.

The door opened and closed as a man and two
little girls walked in. The Bell jangled against the glass
door.

"The guy on the bike is hot." Tasha said. She
knew his name, but enjoyed pestering her two good buddies.

"He's so dirty though. And his name is
Daryl"

"That makes him sexy. He's a sexy, filthy, sweet
redneck." She said and smiled. She did think the man was hot.
Greasy and full of sex appeal, oh yeah baby; she'd take grimy over
clean shaven any day.

"What's a fat black man going to say to that?"
Chris said and then crammed half a Krispy Kreme donut into his
mouth. The white crème seeped out and he licked it up with his
tongue.

“Have you guys read Crossed?” Andre asked.

“Whooooa. Getting a little too nasty.” Chris
said.

“
Comic book
brutality at its best. Gore. Sex. Mayhem. You name it.
Crossed
has it!” Andre said.

“Not for the kiddies.” Chris said.

A man walked up to the counter with his son,
“Crossed? Tell me about it. Oh! Don’t worry about him, he can
handle a little gore.”

Chris looked at the man, smiled, and spoke. “OK.
If you say so. Well… lets see… there’s some kind of crazy infection
that turns people into sex crazed cannibals. Some scenes have women
having their heads cleaved while getting raped. Babies get ripped
apart.”

“What happened to the days of Super Man and
Wonder Woman?” The man said.

“There still here! They can get brutal too”
Chris said, his bright brown eyes nearly popped out of his black
head. Comics. God he loves his comics. The pages, soft yet course,
feed his body the soul food a man needs. He drank from the comic
well early in life and never turned back.

At least till 2008. When American politicians
took a back seat and let the Wall streeters take the country into a
suicidal, economical nosedive. Business dropped. People stopped
coming. People couldn’t afford the comics he and his brother so
desperately loved and needed to sell. Chris's family depended on
those comics flying off the shelves at break neck speed. He'd taken
a huge mortgage on a massive three story brick country home with
two ackers of land. Top of the line security. Easy credit, baby—the
tale from the 2000s. People boozing on a never ending supply of
easy smeasy buying. Desperate to get their hands on the best
consumer goods and real estate. God did people go crazy for new
homes.

Chris's wife, or as he as he’d say while in his
comic store bubble, The Modern Bitch or the Spending Queen. Her
eyes gleamed at the site of anything expensive. She especially
loved black diamonds. Quite the spending frenzy took place during
the epic spending years of 03 and 04. Knight’s Jewelry benefited
mightily, raking in 20000 dollars in jewelry sales from The Modern
Bitch. Or, better said, The Modern Bitch’s husband.

The man and his son walked away, exited the
double doors, holding one open while another man came in. The man’s
head was bald and shiny and he approached the front counter with a
smile. “How do you do?” He spoke with the carelessness of a wealthy
rearing. He spoke with confidence and absolute ease. He leaned into
the counter with grace and cocky kindness. His glorious coffee
stained teeth glistened in the sunlight shining through the wide
and large rectangle windows. The windows surrounded the double
doors, and the double glass doors were adorned with COMIC BOOK
(left) and COMIC BOOK (right). From the front doors the store
opened up into a rectangle running about one hundred feet. There
were comic books covering every inch of the wall, the categories
painted in the retro sixties Batman style. The seductive smell of
new comic books perfumed the filtered air. Two large air purifiers
blurred on either side of the rectangle of comic books. Two fans
blew above, casting cool and clean air around those below. The
front desk sat to the left of the front door way.

Chris finished licking his fingers, the Krispy
glaze swirling in his belly. The bald man in front of him said, “I
hear you’re selling this place?”

It was true. After the 08 crisis, he’d lost
everything save for the store and the house. He barely kept the
house. But it wasn’t just the Wall streeters that destroyed him.
From the year 2013 till the Fever, Comic Carnival, right across the
street, stole almost all of his customers. Chris said, “True. True.
Oh so true. That mean yes.”

“I’ll take it!” He slapped out his hand. “The
name’s Okona. I’ll not only pay you what you’re asking. I’d like to
hire you as the full time managers.”

The joyous disbelief that crossed the brother's
faces told the hard tale of business warfare with Tommy Morrow. The
slow but steady demise of their customer base, till both pulled
money from savings to keep the store open. Now this bald angel,
with his bright and welcoming smile, saved them from financial
ruin. Coffee and lattes? How could they compete against that? Thick
leather couches and surround sound stereo? Video consoles with
leather gamer chairs? Tommy had stacked the deck against the
brothers and they grimaced every time he waved a huge and arrogant
hand from across the street. Family life strained to near divorce,
kids angry they lost tennis and dance. Just the night before, Chris
had come home, feeling like he might crawl himself up to the door
step. When he walked in, The Modern Bitch's glaring stood waiting.
“You fat fuck! Worthless fat bastard!”

SLAP! He never raised a hand back at her and
took his beating with as much dignity a grown man could muster
under such domestically violent outbursts. “The girls hate you.
Know that? Yeah, oh hell yeah, they sure do.” She spoke with
sincere joy, her eyes savoring every painful jab. “’Why is daddy a
loser?’ HA! That’s what they ask me!”

God kill me
, he
thought.
Make it go away
.
He wanted to ask her why she didn't use that fancy law degree of
her to make some money. But that would only make matters worse. She
volunteered her time to the local NAACP chapter; if Chris would
suggest she do otherwise; well, he knew better than that. After the
onslaught had ended, he retreated to the kitchen. The shiny clean
white with blue striped floor, pure marble, stared up at him as he
shuffled tirelessly to the refrigerator. His hand slipped weakly
around the black handle. He held it there for a moment, sure the
worst thing possible will prove true the moment he opened it. He
just held the handle and stared at the photos on the fringe.
Earlier in the day, his beloved had given the girls a project. He
could imagine what was said.

“Your worthless father doesn’t deserve a place
in our pictures. Does he?”